- Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation as Army secretary
- The Army will lack a Senate-confirmed civilian or military leader after his exit
- Driscoll has served as Army secretary since February 2025
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a 2026 Wash100 awardee, has submitted his resignation to President Donald Trump and is expected to leave the Pentagon in the coming days, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Breaking Defense reported that two Army officials confirmed the resignation, with one official saying Driscoll tendered it following a conversation with Trump about the state of the Army. WSJ reported that Driscoll’s exit follows a period of reported tension with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, a two-time Wash100 honoree, over the Army’s direction.
Who Could Succeed Driscoll?
Breaking Defense reported that a replacement had not been immediately named, though an Army official told the outlet that the undersecretary position, currently held by Michael Obadal, also a 2026 Wash100 honoree, would typically be next in line for the role. The same official told Breaking Defense that Obadal and Hegseth maintain a positive working relationship.
What Did the White House Say About Driscoll’s Tenure?
“Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the White House, said in a statement to WSJ.
“The United States Army is more powerful than ever thanks to his work alongside the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of War,” Kelly added.
Who Is Dan Driscoll?
Driscoll is a former Army officer and business executive who has served as secretary of the Army since February 2025, following his nomination and Senate confirmation. In the role, he has overseen operations, modernization and resource allocation for nearly 1 million active, guard and reserve soldiers and more than 265,000 Army civilians.
He was commissioned in 2007 as an armor officer, led a cavalry platoon in the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York, and deployed to Baghdad in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009.
Driscoll holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. Before joining the Army secretary role, he held leadership positions in investment banking and private equity, including chief operating officer of a $200 million venture capital fund.
What Has Driscoll Accomplished as Army Secretary?
Throughout his tenure, Driscoll has pushed acquisition reform and modernization across the service. He signed a statement of intent with NATO allies to expand access to the Army’s UAS Marketplace at Eurosatory in June 2026, building on the Army’s broader push to field unmanned and counter-drone capabilities faster. He also joined industry leaders to launch the “Right to Integrate” hackathon initiative aimed at accelerating the integration of Army systems with new technologies, and worked to expand access to intellectual property and digital manufacturing capabilities to strengthen the service’s supply chain resilience.
More recently, Driscoll signed a memo directing the Army to prioritize commercially available software over custom-built systems, extending a broader restructuring effort he had outlined earlier in the year under the Army Transformation Initiative.
